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Could Consciousness Forge the Universe?
Objective reality, and the laws of physics themselves, emerge from our observations, according to a new framework that turns what we think of as fundamental on its head.

A new approach towards a Modern Metaphysics is presented. It shows which physical implications might be connected with the condition of transcendence.

Author Bio

Helmut Hansen is author. He is convinced that metaphysics can be conducted as an exact science like nuclear physics. Out of this conviction have now emerged several books, f.e. Von der Entdeckung Gottes am Rande des Universums (From the discovery of God on the edge of the universe), published in 2005. It deals with the history of metaphysics and shows how a scientific proof of the existence of the One could look like.

Would the Catholic Church which you mention in your essay be the same Catholic Church which burned Giordano Bruno at the stake in 1600 for suggesting that the stars might be other suns? That sort of "unpleasantness" tends to give metaphysics a bad name. Scientists have long memories.

you're absolutely right in pointing to the case of Giordano Bruno, and it is extremely important that such cases should never be forgotten. Since the Catholic Church still believes she is in the possession of the ultimate truth about reality, it is necessary to investigate this truth in a systematic and openminded way. As long as there is no real scientific basis for the One, something like a modern metaphysics, the Catholic Church will continue to threaten the freedom of the human mind.

But until now no one has found a way to conduct metaphysics in such a scientific fashion. As far as the One, that is, the assumption of a transcendent foundation of the Universe, is concerned, the belief in the guise of religion is still the dominant force: It decisively determines how we think about this One. This force is profoundly irrational. In its fundamentalistic form it is even highly dangerous. In other words: If we leave the interpretation of the One faith, then we leave it irrational forces.

In the past we had to accept this dominant role of faith because no one knew how to conduct metaphysics in a scientific fashion. But this task can as conceived by me be done. The key to it is precisely the property of transcendence, which previously represented an insurmountable barrier of knowledge. This barrier can actually be overcome, because transcendence is with respect to the physical universe such a restrictive condition that the possibilities of how the universe might look like, are so far limited that only one structure is likely.

Juan ramos wrote on Sep. 13, 2009 @ 15:34 GMT

Mr. Hansen:

Metaphysics and physics bouneries and foundations are very much the same thing.

I agree that these disciplines could be managed as sciences , and I am sure they could tell us at least some of the characteristics of The One (as you call Him).

Now, what would you say is possible to know scientificaly about God in terms of the following questions.

if the theological property of invisibility is really the result of a specific conception of our Universe, that is, the result of a certain kind of radical non-duality conception, as I tried to show in my essay, then the One cannot, in principle, be a God, who is for example able to reveal himself in a burning bush. If nature does follow the Principle of Radical Non-Duality then the One is literally invisible. Invisibility is no longer usable as a diffuse philosophical description of a hidden God. It maintains instead of that a very precise physical meaning. But this does not mean that the One cannot be experienced by human beings. It can. All mystical traditions are talking about the experience of limitless bliss which comes up if a human being is going to enter this invisible sphere.

I am very interested in your essay. My question is: Is it your position that the One must, by definition, physically contain the universe? In other words, do you ascribe any physical attributes to the One? In particular, is physical largeness a necessary condition for the One to exist?

physical largeness is a necessary condition for the One. To put it more plainly: The existence of the One can only and if be assumed if the coincidence of the Smallest (= infinite Small) and the Largest (= infinite Large) is physically realized, because this very specific condition describes, how the One is encoded into the physical universe in such a way, that it can be everywhere (i.e. of being omnipresent), but no one (= no observer) can see it (i.e. of being invisible). If this condition is empirically not realized, then the existence of the One must be denied. Actually it is the crux of the entire research program of a modern metaphysics.

To make this program more understandable, let me give a basic explanation: The starting point of it was the class of all those attributes which were usually ascribed GOD; attributes like Omnipresence, Invisibility, Absoluteness (to be uncoditioned). Although we are aware of these properties for more than two millennia, it has never been examined in more detail, what physical implications are involved. For me, a point from the beginning was very clear: If the ultimate foundation of our Universe was really characterized by such unusual properties, like invisibility (i.e. transcendence), then it must have an equally unusual structure. The coincidence of the Smallest and the Largest is integral part of this structure. Physically we would talk about it as a boundary condition at infinity.

Helmut

James Putnam wrote on Sep. 15, 2009 @ 17:29 GMT

Hi Helmut,

Thank you for your reply. I did read your essay carefully before asking my question. When you assign a property like largeness, it indicates to me that you may be speaking about something with substance. If this is the case, then there are other physical properties that need to be addressed. Do you envision the One as having physical properties other than largeness and invisibility? Also, with regard to attributes usually assigned to God, do you see a property of omniscience for the One?

It's interesting to appraoch this spiritual point of vue .Thanks for that .

How could we resume this entity? ,this builder ,this God ,this uniqueness,this all,......perhaps only with love ,confidence in the ultim equation ,and respect with the fact what we are creations of light in fact thus we must act like catalyzers of this universal love ,this universal...

It's interesting to appraoch this spiritual point of vue .Thanks for that .

How could we resume this entity? ,this builder ,this God ,this uniqueness,this all,......perhaps only with love ,confidence in the ultim equation ,and respect with the fact what we are creations of light in fact thus we must act like catalyzers of this universal love ,this universal physicality in building ,this equation where the mass becomes ...

We evolve and the intelligence can accelerate and catalyze the systems in a harmonic point of vue .

The death is just human ,it's sure ,the informations ,and the memmory rest ,and we evolve ,this hope is important ,the ba thus will disapear simply because it's human simply .

Let's take the weapons ,just the word is sufficient to define the bad and of course its sister the monney ,its brother the vanity and its father the differences .

The fact to encircle this improvement is a real hope .Our young ages have created silly and stupids things ,the future will optimize all that ,the intelligence can accelerate that like a fundamental catalyzer of the Sphere in evolution towards this harmony between cosmolog spheres .

He builds ,the light builds the physicality ...the universal informations of love and complemenatrity is the ubiquity of informations like a consciousness of this building by an unknew ,unfathomable,imperceptible exept in its incredible physicality in optimisation ,improvement ,complexification towards an ultim physicality where the harmony betwen mass systems continue an eternal inetractions atemporal ,eternal in continuing exponentials of creations and interactions ,the light becoming mass ,and the light is infinite....the fact to encircle this evolution show us a so beautiful force who creates spheres ,mass ,the energy ,the lifes ,the intelligences ,the diversity ,....and that's continue ,we are still so youngs but we have all the same age in the same time ,because all is linked since the begining of the physicality ,like babies of the Universe ,the eyes in the sky ,in this light ,this immensity who ,which evolves and continues to arrange ,the only way to understand are the informations ,the equation in the physicality optimize in time itself ,harmonize itself ,improve itself ,all was coded ,the sphere builds itself ,there is an ultim aim in the physicality ,an eternal continuity of creations ,and interactions between the cosmological spheres where probably all quantum spheres are arranged ,....The fact to understand that implies so beautiful extrapolations ,our future is fantastic ,incredible ,so beautiful ,the improvement is fundamenatl and the hope in this optic is its sister .The good informations are there around us ,it's the most important,they shall rest and they shall improve in the physicality ,this sphere for me .

the One itself (!) does not have any physical property: it is beyond of every physical property. The One f.e. is neither large nor small. It is beyond of every spatial relation. This demand is guaranteed by the demand of the coincidence of the Smallest and the Largest. Properties like invisibility are not usual physical properties. We can say that the...

the One itself (!) does not have any physical property: it is beyond of every physical property. The One f.e. is neither large nor small. It is beyond of every spatial relation. This demand is guaranteed by the demand of the coincidence of the Smallest and the Largest. Properties like invisibility are not usual physical properties. We can say that the Universe does have a radical non-dual conception and we may even be able to prove its existence experimentally, but we cannot prove that there is something like the One, which is the root of this conception, because the One is by its very nature invisible. The One is physically out of reach.

That is the meaning of transcendence. But this does not mean, that the structure of the Universe can be vague and not determined. The opposite is the case. To possess a foundation that is out of reach the visible Universe must satisfy very special conditions. The Principle of Radical Non-Duality is describing some of these conditions. In line No. 3 of my table you can find the notion v = infinite. If the One shall be the omnipresent foundation of the universe, the speed of light cannot be the ultimate limiting speed of the universe. An entity or force which is essentially restricted by the speed of light cannot be everywhere at the same time, because the speed of light is finite: It needs time to connect remote points of space.

If an entity shall be omnipresent the speed has therefore to be infinite. But as the property of omnipresence is exclusively (!) related to the One, no physical object or process can reach this speed. Hence, this speed must physically be unreachable.

Such a condition would have far-reaching physical consequences. Space and time f.e. could not be structured in a relativistic way, because in special relativity the metaphysical segment from c until infinite is not considered. If we like to know how space and time have to be structured in a Universe with a metaphysical foundation like the One we have to complete the relativistic space-time-picture (i.e. the Minkowski-Diagram) in such a way, that the ultimate limiting speed is not c, but infinite.

Following this metaphysical demand the structure of a MANDALA could finally be identified as the supplemented space-time-picture. And this archetypal picture, consisting of a scale-invariant set of circles and squares, offers a completely different interpretation of the Michelson-Morley-Experiment. (I have written a German book about this issue: Die Linien des Alten / Einsteins letzte Vision; The Lines of the Old One / Einsteins last Vision).

In summary: the One may be indescribable, but the physical consequences for the structure of the universe could be considerable.

"...the One itself (!) does not have any physical property: it is beyond of every physical property."

It is the differences that eliminate God that I was wondering about.

"In line No. 3 of my table you can find the notion v = infinite. If the One shall be the omnipresent foundation of the universe, the speed of light cannot be the ultimate limiting speed of the universe. An entity or force which is essentially restricted by the speed of light cannot be everywhere at the same time, because the speed of light is finite: It needs time to connect remote points of space."

"If an entity shall be omnipresent the speed has therefore to be infinite. But as the property of omnipresence is exclusively (!) related to the One, no physical object or process can reach this speed. Hence, this speed must physically be unreachable."

This is easy to agree with. The universe is under control and, I think for reasons similar to your reasoning, the speed of light cannot be representative of the means of control over the whole universe at all times.

"Such a condition would have far-reaching physical consequences. Space and time f.e. could not be structured in a relativistic way, because in special relativity the metaphysical segment from c until infinite is not considered."

I agree that relativity theory cannot tell us about the nature of either space or time. I think it is just a theory that exists because we have not yet done better than it. Do you have more that you would like to say about the consequences as you see them?

Your concluding remarks.

"Following this metaphysical demand the structure of a MANDALA could finally be identified as the supplemented space-time-picture. And this archetypal picture, consisting of a scale-invariant set of circles and squares, offers a completely different interpretation of the Michelson-Morley-Experiment. (I have written a German book about this issue: Die Linien des Alten / Einsteins letzte Vision; The Lines of the Old One / Einsteins last Vision).

In summary: the One may be indescribable, but the physical consequences for the structure of the universe could be considerable."

You did not say anything about omniscience. I was interested in what role the One plays in the development of intelligence. I was wondering what you think the cause of intelligence is? Is it the result of physical properties like those currently described by theoretical physics or do you have a different opinion?

to say the One is omniscient is suggesting that there is a Being who knows everything. but as far as there is any who or ego omniscience is impossible. But if you are able to leave your personal restrictions and habits behind you will realize more and more that at the most fundamental level of the Universe there is no difference between knowlegde and thingness. If we were even...

to say the One is omniscient is suggesting that there is a Being who knows everything. but as far as there is any who or ego omniscience is impossible. But if you are able to leave your personal restrictions and habits behind you will realize more and more that at the most fundamental level of the Universe there is no difference between knowlegde and thingness. If we were even able to recognize this deep unity of knowledge and thingness as the true essence of our universe we would, in fact, know everything. Already in 1930 the astrophysicist Sir James Jeans wrote the universe begins to look more like a great thought than like a great machine.

Although physics was originally dealing with things like moving planets and balls, today one of its driving forces is actually the discovery that information could sit at the core of physics. The great physicist Archibald Wheeler coined the expression IT from BIT. This phrase symbolizes the idea that every item of the physical Universe has at a very deep bottom an immaterial source. In the past we have stressed the IT-Dimension, but now we are going to discover the great importance of the BIT-Dimension.

But if we were able to advance our consciousness to the ultimate level, i.e. to pure Oneness, we would discover that there is even no difference between IT and BIT. In other words: The universe cannot completely be digitalized. (There are in fact different physicists, who are believing that our universe is, at heart, describable by information. The Physicist Carl Friedrich von Weizsäcker f.e. proposed a theory of so-called ur-alternatives; a specific kind of logical atomism. It was first proposed in his book Einheit der Natur (1971), which was translated into English in 1980 as The Unity of Nature). But according to a modern metaphysics there would be a difference between a computable universe and a universe with a metaphysical foundation like the One. Such a universe would base upon something, in which all fundamental (!) differences are solved into Oneness. In Buddhist philosophy just this solved difference between IT and BIT is expressed in the so-called HEART SUTRA: Form is Emptiness, Emptiness is Form. Form and emptiness are representing as conceived by me the transcended terms of energy (IT) and information (BIT).

As our deepest essence is related to this Oneness, we are fundamentally free. We are not only determined by a big mechanical machine a la Newton, we are also not determined by a sophisticated program running on a big computing-machine. We are simply captured by the limits of our mind, which are expressed in its most advanced form by our present physical theories. If we like to see the universe from a metaphysical or, let say, spiritual point of view, we have to extend our theories. f.e. the special theory of relativity. In the added paper Do Space and Time have an Archetypal Design? I give an overview how this extension led to the discovery of the Mandala.

(A similar paper was presented during the 14th Natural Philosophy Alliance Conference at the University of Connecticut/USA in 2007 (Proceedings of the NPA, Volume 4, No. 1, pp. 115).

thank you very much for your different posts. I did not understand them all, but the last two I did.

MANDALA: To my opinion this archetypal structure describes how space and time are organized at the most fundamental level. The (inner) sphere and the (outer) square can be read as different expressions of the constancy of light. If you set c = 1, this possiblity becomes visible. It means, that the constancy of light, that is c, is not an unambiguous constant as we still believe today. There are, in fact, two geometrical versions how it is physically realized.

IT from BIT: The binary digit (bit) can be interpreted as the most elementary way to measure form. The German physicist Carl Friedrich von Weizsäcker has elaborated this approach in detail. He used it to derive the 3-dimensionality of space. Hence, it seems to me that there is a hidden connection between IT from BIT and the structure of the MANDALA.

Helmut

Steve Dufourny wrote on Sep. 21, 2009 @ 08:11 GMT

Hello dear Helmut ,

You are welcome .

Sorry for my poor english .I write in english like in french ,too litteral ,I am going to improve it .

You know ,I don't see an other reason that an Universe which becomes a perfect balance of spheres inside an universal sphere ,and if the quantum particles are spheres and if they all rotate thus the mass is ....and the time build this equation ,a big equation where it exists thus an ultim physical aim .

You know ,I don't see an other reason that an Universe which becomes a perfect balance of spheres inside an universal sphere ,and if the quantum particles are spheres and if they all rotate thus the mass is ....and the time build this equation ,a big equation where it exists thus an ultim physical aim .

Our particles ,these quantum spheres buld a beautiful spheres .

The complexity returns to the simplicity .

The sphere is the perfect balance of forces ,the mass curves the space like in GR ,and more we polarises ,more the mass increases thus the sphere curves itself by complexification .

The fact to understand this physical aim show us an unknew entropy and its equations towards optimisation ,harmony and balances between spheres ,quantum and cosmological .

Your ideas is relevant about the philosophy and the spiritual point of vue where the universality is a truth with a link with all .

The unification is that too ,the future sphere and its eternity .The fact to encircle what we are a part of this building show us an unification since the begining and towards this ultim harmony and where begins the eternity between mass systems .

In Fact it's logic ,the evolution is essential where the quantum coded spheres build in a space and with a time constant .

If I extrapolate a little your idea ,thus it's behind the wall and about the ubiquity of universal informations of harmonisation .

Thus a kind of information between the two systems BIT IT ,thus a kind of consciousness with the unknew linked with the limits ,like the planck limits .

It's very interesting because the information is the only way to improve the physical equation ,thus indeed it's essential .

Thus the memory too is essential ,we have all the same memory in fact ....

The information is when we extrapolate this unknew ,this entity ,resumes in one word ,the love and the universality in the respect of all creations .

It's a little too if all was light outside the physicality because the mass becomes .....but the light ,thus s the only infinity inside and outside the physicality .....a real hope in fact ,the pure love in the universal finished sphere where begins the eternity of creations and of creativity too.

The time is just to build this sphere and for that a constant is necessary I think .

About the Mach Principle ,it's a little fight with the general relativity and the inertie .

I don't think what the origin of mass is the whole of universal mass ,of course all is linked and is dependant ,but the mass I think appears with the physical rotations of quantum spheres .This motion ,this rotation is a main part of all .

About the Mach Principle ,it's a little fight with the general relativity and the inertie .

I don't think what the origin of mass is the whole of universal mass ,of course all is linked and is dependant ,but the mass I think appears with the physical rotations of quantum spheres .This motion ,this rotation is a main part of all .

I think what evidently the whole of fundamental laws rest and we can't take off some referentials .Thus the rotation is of course linked with the ultim equation and its frequences ,oscillations of rotations in building .

In fact the Mac principle and the general relativity are closes ,nears .It's impossible to take off the fundamenatls thus it's impossible to contredict the Mac Principle .It's a specific sensorial interpretation of the Universe where all is linked .

It's the same with the rotations of spheres ,implying mass ,if all is aN entanglement of spheres with or without rotation thus all is in contact thus all is linked ,thus we can't take off even only one law or reality and its invariances ,coherences .

The centrifugal forces thus is a code where the cause is very very complex ,linked with the space and matter and its mass of gravitation implying gravitational waves .

But of course if we insert the evolution and the polarisation ,thus an increase of mass due to an activation of quantum spheres becoming thus mass and rule with a specific codes of rotations of all these spheres .

It's important and essential thus to have a real topology of this universal sphere ,where the mass and the gravitation more the spheres and the spherical gravitational waves ,are considered with their specifics variables ,parameters of the evolutive system .

The curvature thus is correlated with this gravity ,the mass ,the rotating quantum spheres more an universal constant with the cosmological sphere and its spheres in improvement near centers .

The mass evidently is linked and the centrifugal forces thus is linked ,but evidently we can't change the referential where all is coded by this ultim unknew entropy of pure light probably .

I speculate that quantum gravity might exhibit a layering of structure as one approaches the Planck scale. These structures might become more complex or abstract. Then at the Planck scale it is possible that physics in some sense ends, and what we identify as the quantum vacuum amounts to completely self-referential elements with no discernable structure. Physical reality at a scale larger than L_p = sqrt{G hbar/c^3) are then accidents of sorts, just as Chaitan has said that mathematics which obeys axiomatic rules are accidents which emerge from a vast set of self-referential propositions.

So beneath it all there might then be something similar to what Leibnitz speculated about with monads. Monads are fundamental structureless elements which mirror each other in a great net to define this grand unity underneath existence.

You wrote in Crane's page: the most central problem of making starships is surely the unsolved question: How can we overcome the lightbarrier?

I have another solution how to overcome the light barrier. If Universe has a limited volume, we can teleport a body by sending one outside of universe. (The original paper is here). Since a body cannot exist outside of universe, one reappears at random in the real Universe. If the disappearance and reappearance places do no coincides, it is faster than light teleportation. The distance between start and finish points can be very long. Outside of Universe is nothing, it is a hole in space-time. To send a body outside of the universe we must envelope a body with a closed hole surface consisting of holes in space-time. There are some methods how to create holes.

Looks like we are on similar tracks, with regard to metaphysics/theology. In my picture, all data is both physical and metaphysical data, everything depends on the model we use to interpret it. I go with Landauer's hypothesis that all information is represented physically.

I spent quite a while in the Roman Catholic Dominican Order before being let go for unorthodoxy. My essay is the next step in a long project to formulate a reconciliation of the God of Aquinas' Summa with the universe I experience. I have a rather ramshackle website at naturaltheology.net which might convey a bit more detail. It is rather unmaintained, but hope to catch up one day when I stop working for a living, the children grow up, etc

I see the smallest as the quantum of action, but fear Russells paradox and related demons when we try to talk about the largest. As of about twenty years the layered transfinite network approach has seemed quite good to me.

I am not quite sure whether we are really on similar tracks. My essay, esspecially the Principle of Radical Non-Duality, is only showing the FRAME of a modern metaphysics, but it does not show the corresponding PICTURE, that is, a specific metaphysical spacetime. And just this picture makes the important difference - at least from a purely physical point of view. Alhtough this picture is of lorentzinvariant character the way how lorentz-invariance is encoded into it differs essentially from special relativity. As far as I can see there are even measurable differences between the relativistic view of the universe and this metaphysical picture of space and time.

I have added a paper which gives you an impression of this metaphysical picture. If you look at it you will understand that it can be doubted whether we are really moving along similar tracks.

I have read the referenced paper and take your pojnt. I think I was moved by your reference to metaphysics. I think that I see metaphysics (in a nutshell), as the boundary by causal connections imposed by the mathematical theory of communication, or more generally, as the theory of computation. Rather like the tourist who asked the mythical Irishman for directions to a certain destination and was told 'you can't get to there from here, you'll have to start somewhere else.'

Helmut, I have read your statement and we are close to being in agreement but there is one evolved difference...I have mistakenly assumed that God is a perfect being.

God is not a perfect being. God is an omnipotent, omniscient and omipresent being...all transcendent attributes of being but not also descriptions of perfection.

Perfection is not a state of individual or unique existence. Perfection describes a balanced condition between at least two objects, forces or relationships. The condition is a result of the existence of more than oneness...an object plus a force or an object plus an object...any combination that results in two or more creates a possible condition of perfection. If the condition of two or more does not also contain the ability to sense the presence of otherness and to respond with a change in self presence then there is a physical condition that can be described as perfection if the components of otherness maintain their uniqueness within all possible configurations of the originally observed condition.

If the two or more does contain the ability to sense the presence of otherness and the ability to respond with a change in self presence then there is a decisional (freewill) condition that can be described as perfection if the decision and change is made in order to maintain the originally observed condition within all possible sensed configurations of the originally observed condition. In this case there is also the continuing possibility of choosing not to maintain the originally observed condition. So perfection can be the continuing result of a physical condition or a decisional (freewill) condition.

The Creator in my position is omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent, and capable of changing...also, the Creator of perfection.

I do not believe that we are really close of being in agreement. There is one tremendous difference: you are thinking of GOD as a Being. I do not believe in that. After dealing intensively with divine properties like INVISIBILITY I discovered that all these properties can be derived from specific physical conditions. In the case of invisibility I could relate this attribute to a specific set of non-dual conditions, what I am calling the Principle of Radical Non-Duality. This relationship convinced me that there is no space for a supreme Being to act freely. In brief, invisibility is not the result of a divine act as you may think but the unavoidable result of a specific structure of our universe. The One is an impersonal sphere, which penetrates the universe in all directions, but it has no power to act as it pleases.

That's at least my conviction. I am considering my work as the continuation of the process of enlightenment which started in the 18th century, but let the One or God as you like unenlightened.